Not everything from the Pixar stables is perfect. Cars was pretty bland, and after its spellbinding first half hour, Wall-E went strictly downhill. But then, along comes a film like Up, a film so fantastically uplifting and so universal in it’s appeal that it’s hard not to be thankful for the joy of being a moviegoer in an age when this animation studio has produced a run of brilliant titles that compares with the golden era of late-1930s Disney.

Up actually begins in the 1930s. A wordless opening depicting the relationship between Carl and Ellie Fredricksen lasts barely five minutes but offers in compacted form more laughter, sorrow and breathtaking beauty than exists in most of the ouput from Hollywood
in any given year.

The characters are wonderfully developed; ther’s Carl, a dreamer and would-be wanderer, sitting in a movie theatre wearing aviator goggles and thrilling at the latest black-and-white newsreel adventures of Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer), an action-hero in the mould of Indiana Jones who uses a giant airship to explore exotic lands and discover rare creatures, and whose catchphrase is “Adventure is out there!”

And there, suddenly, is Ellie, another youngster awe-struck by the distant worlds invoked by Muntz. Together they plot and scheme, fall in love, get married, buy a ramshackle home they work hard to fix up. They save every spare dime in a jar so that, one happy day, they can pay for a trip to the legendary Paradise Falls. But the bills mount, their funds dip, and, in a couple of heartbreaking shots, they’re shown dealing with the fact that they’ll never be able to have children.

Over time, their youthful dreams become just that: dreams. They console themselves with each other. Their marriage is tested,but they survive, take care of each other. Soon they sicken, get bent. One day, Ellie doesn’t get up. Carl, now 78 years old, is inconsolable.

It’s one of the most extraordinarily openings to a film, far less an animated film, ever to have been crafted. It dares to risk alienating the young children all the poster and ad campaigns would suggest it’s aimed at. Against the tendency of studios to appease older viewers with a stream of double-entendres and in-jokes, it deluges them with more heart-on-sleeve emotion than a romantic weepie. Most of all, it threatens to topload the drama so that everything that follows might seem a letdown.

The wonder of Up is that it’s loosely enough plotted to float and drift in new directions, to the extent that it’s almost two or three films in one. Nonetheless it never entirely abandons the memory of the sadness, difficult joy and blue-noted consolations of those early scenes.

What about the rest of Up? The central storyline revolves around Carl (Ed Asner), who has begun to curdle into square-jawed, cantankerous widowerdom, chafing against local real-estate developers. They want to pack him off to a nursing home and construct a ghastly development on the hallowed site he and Ellie built into reality.

In an act of truculent independence, and in a last ditch attempt to visit the mythical lost worlds of South America after which he lusted as an adolescent, he ties up thousands of balloons to the roof of his house and sails off into the bright blue beyond to fulfil that dream.

There’s one complication: an 8-year-old boy-scout-type called Russell (Jordan Nagai) happened to be on his porch when the building floated to the heavens. The cussed Spencer Tracey-lookalike and the alarmingly enthusiastic, high-pitched Asian American make for an oddly endearing double-act not so dissimilar from that of Clint Eastwood and Bee Vang in Gran Torino (2008).

Together they fly down to a magical realm full of dense forests and immense waterfalls. All the while, tethered to their portable house, the memories it embodies weighing them down, they’re looking for the spot Ellie had always wanted to go. Along the way, they’re accompanied by a rare 13-foot-tall, chocolate-chomping (female) bird nicknamed Kevin. They’re chased by savage dogs with squeaky voices. Muntz turns out to be different from the hero that Carl had once imagined him.

I approached this films having heard mixed reviews and wlaked out the cinema with a sense that I had seen something quite wonderful. 3D does seem to be back in fashion right now and the Digital Projectors make this a must see at the cinema. Home 3D, with those horrid green and magenta specs, is no comparison to the Real 3D presentation at the cinema. The 3D is a nice touch but the story is so touching, well written and absorbing that you even forget the 3D. This is one of my top 10 films of 2009. Catch it quick.

Tags: Grant Thomas, Movie Review, pixar, Up

It appears that a few companies have returned from their bucket and spade summer vacation with an appetite for a spending spree. Yesterday the massive US Kraft conglomerate made a £10bn bid for UK’s chocolate producer Cadbury’s and today a far more interesting alliance is announced today with T-mobile and Orange agreeing to merge from November.

The deal between Orange-owner France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile UK will create a business with sales of 9.4bn euros (£8.2bn; $13.5bn).The merged firm will have about 37% of the UK mobile market – overtaking the current leader, Telefonica’s O2.

How will this new market leader take on O2’s dominance of the hand-held internet market with it’s exclusivity with the Apple iphone? Both brands will remain separate for the first 18 months after the deal is completed while branding is reviewed. Interesting ideas on naming, possible Lancashire version T’orange, like T’internet?

Taking a broad feel of the market reports in the past two weeks there is a fair amount of optimism out there. No we are not in a steep growth curve and if this is a recovery, versus a small bounce before 2nd fall, then any this growth continue to be small.

Since first drafting this blog entry yesterday there is a definite uplift in optimism with consultancy KPMG reporting the first rise in permanent job positions in 17 months and plenty of press, radio and TV coverage claiming the recession is over. One other news story yesterday predicting that interest rates will remain low with no expected change to the Bank of England base rate when they publish their decision tomorrow lunchtime.

So are we out of recession? Are the bad times over?

My take / predictions; for the past half a century the UK economy has gone through a boom and bust cycle every 10 years. This mini recession has been deep and any return to growth will be slow, with a possible slip early 2010. Interest rates look like they will remain low through 2010 with some very competitive mortgage deals with the smaller lenders (big banks will still be profit taking to pay back the UK government). Job market will probably be less stable until middle of the year (or two quarters of consecutive growth), however housing market in the south east will continue the late summer price gains with demand outstripping supply.

What do you think? What are your predictions for 2010?

Across the gulf of space the Atlantic, slowly and surely they drew their plans against us. Well, not us, but everyone involved in the sale of practically anything you can’t eat, wear or drive. Best Buy are on their way to tackle the likes of Comet, Currys, John Lewis and PC World; the heavy artillery won’t start firing until next year but they’ve already started lobbing grenades:

The Best Buy UK website was launched this week; there’s nothing much to see, save for some quiet boasting (“although we’re the world’s largest consumer electronics retailer you probably won’t have heard of us”). They’re certainly in full recruitment drive however, with a dedicated job website for potential employees to submit their details through – perfect in case you’re needing a change of employer soon.

It’s been a week of contrasts; the British Summer delivering rain and sun, big profits and losses as the banks report their half-yearly results, and eye-watering financial loses with companies like ITV and NewsCorp. Yet the stock markets are surging and sterling is rallying against the dollar and the Euro. It’s a quiet news month for sure; the news story that ‘broke’ at 6am on Breakfast News is still the main headline at 10pm that night so trying to track the truffle or nugget of a news gem from the sea of nothingness can take some sifting.

The story that pricked my ears up this week was Rupert Murdoch’s plans to end free news. With the whiff of something that was less than coincidental, The Sunday Times published an article last Sunday attacking the BBC’s unfair advantage with it’s free news coverage and its potential to undermine journalism. News Corp owns the Times and Sun newspapers in the UK and the New York Post and Wall Street Journal in the US and reported a loss of $3.4bn (£2bn) in the year to June 2009. Main reason – plummeting advertising revenue

No surprises so far, what got me radar twitching was Rupert’s comments; “Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting,” he said. I have enjoyed the spats between Murdoch and the BBC for the last 20 years, it’s like watching 2 siblings having a tiff in a sandpit, but what price would you pay for news? And more to the point how do you determine ‘quality’ when the underlying motive is profit?

News Corp is the media conglomerate that owns the TV outlets Sky TV in the UK and Fox News in the USA. To extend this idea of ‘paying for QUALITY content’ and the recent major media story, the death of Michael Jackson, how many people would have ‘paid’ to see the video of the ambulance leaving Michael Jackson’s home? What quality criteria would that be measured against versus the clamber to make a quick buck on a breaking news event?

In the USA this business model may re-fill some of the large revenue hole vacated by the retracting advertising revenue, but in the UK the BBC remains the fly in the ointment to Murdoch’s monopolisation strategy. Sky News is 20 years old this year and whilst it has seen many, many makeovers and format changes, in my opinion, continues to struggle in the quality measurement against the BBC. Not least when the channel already has advert breaks and the irritation of a certain airline ‘sponsoring’ the weather?! I am sure that real time business and market content will continue to be a premium on some of the NewsCorp owned brands like the Financial Times, but what else could be cherry picked as desirable if this dash for cash goes ahead? Who would you trust for news, and would you pay for that?

Those regular followers of my musing will know the passionate belief in quality over quantity. With so many options in every aspect of consumerism how do you get to filter the truth from the fiction, the sell from the flaw. Where can you get balanced perspectives on current events and cultural perspectives?

In the UK we have been spoilt with the warmth and affection we lavish on the BBC, a purposeful protectionism against any slip in a morale standard so perilously high, that it should not be allowed to be degraded by the kind of advertising of another sofa sale in a nearby shopping warehouse.

To that degree in the UK we have come to love and cherish the BBC and whose kept correspondents we allow into our homes with a trust you rarely see in other global media organisations. It is therefore rare when these icons of news reporting get moved around but listing to Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent I learn that Justin Webb is coming back to lighty after 7 years in the USA. Taking his place is the BBC’s current Europe Correspondent Mark Mardell.

Ed Stourton replaced by Justin Webb on BBC Radio 4's Today programme

I really like Justin Webb’s reports; he has a wonderfully creative language and perspective that is simply inspiring. It’s been quite an eventful 7 years for Justin in the USA. Seven years where is has seen president Bush be re-elected, then Obama take his place, the tribulations of the Golf war as well as the personal experiences with the berth of his youngest child as an American citizen and then the difficult personal experiences of the much debated American health system with the diagnosis of type one diabetes for his oldest child.

And where is Webb’s destination, he’s coming back to replace Ed Stourton on the fabulous Radio 4 ‘Today’ breakfast programme. I personally can’t wait!

If you get ten minutes, kick of the shoes, grab a cup of your favourite hot beverage and delight in his final American report, it should be posted as an audio clip later today on the ‘From Our Own Correspondent’s’ web site:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/default.stm

In the mean time, here is the full transcript:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8176448.stm

Tags: BBC News, Justin Webb, Mark Mardell, Today

As I sit here in the Library on Deck 8, looking at the gathered people dockside gazing at the ship and the overlooking the old port of Cherbourg, France it appears modern living may have misplaced an important item, to ‘journey’.

Modern culture, with time and work pressures, often force us to make compromises on a daily basis. Maybe lunch at the desk working rather than the traditional hour away from the work responsibilities, or the convenience meal hastily cooked in the microwave rather than selecting and preparing ingredients , then cooking a meal. In our dash to be herded into cathedrals to travel, our airports, and the resultant propulsion to our destination, we have skipped or just tolerated the journey. Unpicking this realization takes a few days of removal from the routine and to be completely relaxed is to rediscover the journey.

Docked in Zebrugge

Cunard have managed to deliver a solution that is so elegant and timeless yet cutting edge and revolutionary and with Queen Mary 2 they have delivered perfection with a sense of reassurance, relaxation and uniqueness on a vessel that can accommodate every class, genre and desire of her passengers.

As the self cleaning windows wash with the daily clean I am reminded at the effortless ease that this ships oozes in a 24 hour constant maintenance schedule that keeps her pristine and in the condition that she was launched. As you walk round the ship there is nearly always a small amount of cleaning, or painting or varnishing being undertaken, never big enough to impose and within an hour or two they have finished and moved onto the next task.

So what is the Cunard difference? Well as I sat in Britannia Restaurant this morning with 2 perfectly shaped mounds of creamy scrambled egg with crisp white and gold crockery and a hive of waiting staff meaning neither the coffee cup or empty plate were left unattended for more than a few seconds, I could not help thinking that this is what a meal should be like.

Eating should not just be a necessity but an experience. And rather than the plethora of 2 for 1s or meal price deals we are surrounded but high street food chains, the experience should be bespoke, consistent and near military in precision. And the result is sumptuous in quality, luxurious in environment and decadent in consumption.

Cunard has been delivering this style and for over 150 years and have honed this entire operation to near perfection from tip to toe.

This 155,000 tonne ship is magnificent in size, appearance and stature. I often find myself in discussions about ‘What’s the best cruise ship?’ or ‘But this one is bigger and has x and y’, but that dialogue misses the point. Cunard is a standard, it is a beacon of quality that others aspire to meet. For starters, Cunard don’t do cruises, they are Ocean Liners and I can agree with the distinction. As I read the cruising press and the near monthly launch of new vessels and the increasing size and passenger numbers that others dazzle us with, I keep coming back to the point that is this, who else can have a passenger to staff ratio of 2:1?

On this short cruise there are 2,500 passengers with over 1,200 staff on board. This allows an immense amount of space per passenger and the only get to realise this is the safety drill on day 1. From that moment I stepped on I have been able to walk up and order a drink, obtain a snack or drink from Kings Court on deck 7 or simply walk into the main dining room to be allocated a breakfast table. I have always been able to find a vacant lounger in a variety of locations, or be served within a minute of arriving at a bar.

Cutting edge,? Take a look at the Bridge Viewing room on Deck 12 to see the vast instrument panel that ensures safety throughout, or wireless internet in every stateroom (cabin) on board ($0.75 a minute pay as you go).

On this cruise I travelled single and from the moment I pulled up at Southampton was able to easily engage in dialogue with other passengers. Half of the passengers were first timers on QM2 and I could relate to that slightly daunting experience boarding a vessel of this size and heritage so was able to impart some pointers and recommendations that I would have benefited from before my first trip on her.

Now if some are reading this and feeling put off by the formality, fear not. Like other ships there is a ‘freestlye’ dining experience on Deck 7 in the Kings Court. Four restaurants with different flavours deliver food 24 hours a day without a dress code. You can get tea, coffee, fruit juice or water here, or my favourite a nice warm hot chocolate before an evening circumference of the ship ahead of bed.

Whilst I used and welcome the convenience and sheer quality and selection of the food at Kings Court, to me it misses the point. I have dined each night at Brittania Restaurant and I loved the early evening ritual of showering away the day’s adventure and dressing up in a timeless style to dine and not just eat. To enjoy a walk along the deck 7 prom from the bow (my cabin is one of the Oceanview C3 cabins right at the front) to the near stern (Stairway C for the elevator to the entrance to Britannia) and to get a few lungfuls of sea air ahead of an hour or two of decadent cuisine. That is the experience for me. There were 2 Smart Casual nights and two Formal nights on this short cruise.

I was on a table of 8, although only 5 of us showed up. And here’s the point, you meet people on a voyage that you would never normally have met. You get to share your days’ experiences whilst consuming 5 star food and impeccable service in I had 2 delightful couples on the table, both from different parts of the UK but each night we would discuss the trips ashore, compare on board experiences as well as discuss the journey from their home towns. It is a reminder that in a modern world where we rarely know are own neighbours, this is how we used to socialise.

Gangway in Water

Drama? On here? Well only by way of the outstanding shows put on each day in the Royal Court Theatre, or the amazing planetarium 3D show in the Illuminations Theatre, but we actually did have a real mini-drama. Whilst moored in Zeebrugge I had taken a walk into to town and returned early afternoon. After a swim and a BBC cocktail had returned to my cabin and was surprised to see a massive amount of wind and rain out of the porthole. The day had been sunny spells and clouds and this sudden squall had occurred very suddenly. Waiting for the lift on deck 5 on my route to view the storm on the prom the ship suddenly juddered to the point of me nearly stumbling. Upon reaching deck 7 the ship had moved away from the quayside and 4 mooring ropes were frayedon the ground below.

What transpired was that a freak gust had hit the portside of the vessel and 4 substantial mooring ropes had snapped in the force and one gangway had fallen into the water and another was left suspended in mid air. The one remaining mooring rope had pulled the rear of the vessel into the quayside and that was the jolt experienced from the impact.

Insurance assessor was called to clear the ship before leaving port and complimented the strength of QM2 for holding the impact so well. A lesser cruise ship would not have taken this so well. She finally left 5 hours late. Divers on Wednesday inspected the damage whilst in port in Rotterdam and cleared her for onward transit.

Pure chance this morning that I met Captain Nick Bates in a lift on my route to deck 7. He commented that the instruments on the bridge measured the wind gust from 0 to 65 knots in less than 3 seconds. This was not forecasted and passed as quickly as it came so no chance for reaction. I questioned the need for repair and he confirmed that the divers reported that the QM2 was still in fine shape for the Transatlantic New York trip on Friday

There are so many outstanding spaces on Queen Mary 2 that I could wax lyrical about but favourite experiences would have to be;

The Library where I am typing this blog and review from, row upon row of glass fronted dark wooden illuminated cases with thousands of books with sumptuous sofas and subdued lighting whilst the bowed windows to the front of the ship offer an amazing viewpoint;

The Pavilion – a pool, 2 Jacuzzis, a bar and a small band stand where a entertainment plays each lunchtime on sea days with a retractable glass roof looking at the iconic funnel whilst poolside is hugged by padded wooden sunloungers, never full, you MUST try a B.B.C. cocktail (Baileys, Banana and Pina Colada);

The Prom deck 7 – a full 1/3 of a mile of wooden decking wrapping round from the open backed multi-pool stern to the fully enclosed weatherproof bow of the ship. I even walked this circumference in the warm damp shower yesterday evening and the walk it is nearly all undercover due to the overhanging lifeboats above and the overhanging deck at the stern.

Afternoon Tea in the Queens Room; perfectly crustless triangle sandwiches, English tea, exquisite tiny cakes and of course homemade scones, cream and jam served by white gloved waiters in the largest ball room afloat whilst a 4 piece string quartet or harpist simply defines the ambiance and heritage of Cunard, and the standard they created. Just be there 3.30pm sharp for a seat!

Service and excellence are what define Cunard. Rooms made twice a day with perfectly little Cunard mints each night. A waiter there in seconds when dining, or a room steward a phone call and a there in a minute if you need anything. The constant fresh towels in your stateroom or poolside, the army of cleaners and maintenance staff ensuring the ship stays at the pinnacle of her condition. This is what makes a 5 star ship so special and the ability for the passengers to easily differentiate this voyage to other cruise lines.

Above all, the most emotional experience has been leaving port. Last year I was on board QM2 as she navigated up then down the 8 hours transit along the river Elbe as she headed to Hamburg. There were people ALL along the banks during the journey despite it being midnight, bands played, fireworks exploded over head and then the indescribable blast from the ships funnel mounted horns. It is so deep and so loud it just makes you tingle with the experience.

This happened again last night departing Rotterdam and navigating the 2 or 3 hours down the Rhine, a line of people all along the banks, and at certain points a crowd just coming to see the spectacle that is Queen Mary 2. I stood there with glass of something sparkling in the tuxedo I had emerged from another calorie overloaded dinner from Britannia and got that same tingle as the QM2 blasted her farewell nod to the admiring crowds. I could not help but feel privileged once more to be afloat what is a unique triumph to travel. This separates the plethora of cruising indifference to a simply unique voyage and experience. This is the Cunard difference that people in every port just have to come and see.

Cunard use this phrase, but it rings so true on Queen Mary 2, “Life is not about the destination, it’s about the journey